Airline and package holiday operator Jet2 PLC on Thursday reported strong progress in the first half of its financial year, despite natural disasters and air traffic glitches that made life difficult for tourists.

In the six months that ended September 30, revenue rose 24% year-on-year to £4.41 billion from £3.57 billion. Pretax profit jumped 47% to £660.5 million from £450.7 million.

However, Leeds, England-based Jet2 noted around £14.0 million of lost profitability due to the National Air Traffic Services failure in the UK and the Rhodes wildfires and Skiathos floods in Greece over the summer.

The company noted that average load factor improved to 90.5% in the recent year from 69.2% the year before, amid a more than doubling of seat capacity to 17.9 million from 7.0 million.

Jet2 said it is on track to deliver full-year pretax profit before currency revaluation of £480 million to £520 million, in line with its previous guidance for the current financial year. This would be up from £390.8 million on similar terms in financial 2023, which ended on March 31.

Current seat capacity for summer 2024 is around 12% higher than summer 2023, with bookings and pricing ‘encouraging’ and average load factor up two percentage points from the same point last year.

Jet2 raised its interim dividend by 33% to 4.0p from 3.0p. The company explained that basic earnings per share rose to 231.0p from 165.9p, and the dividend decision reflected the full-year earnings outlook.

Jet2 shares were down 4.7% to 1,078.00 pence on Thursday morning in London.

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